Kamel and his wife have been visiting relatives in Jish. They return now and take me to visit Umm Milad Makhoul. We find her energetically chopping parsley for tabbouli, a woman slightly older than Umm Fawzi, who already had several children in 1948. She tells me of several families from Kfar Bir'im in Dbeyeh camp in Lebanon, the first refugee camp I got to know because relatives of my husband lived there.

Umm Milad begins to speak:
"We stayed the first year, the second year. Our children, they were young, all born newly. [How many children did you have at the time of the war?] At the time of the war, in 1948, I had a son called Milad - Milad who is now in Dbeyeh - a son called Maroun - he's in France - and Myriam - I was pregnant with Myriam. I went to Rmeish, or maybe it was Ibil - Rmeish or Ibil it doesn't matter - a village to the north [of Lebanon], near Ibliya, near us. Later our son Johnny was born in Lebanon. We had one child born in Lebanon, we didn't have more children there. We came to Israel, and then Makhoul and Ilana were born. We went around, we wanted to build a house but we couldn't. Where could we settle? There wasn't anywhere. (Was this before the destruction of the village?) They destroyed Kfar B'rim in 1953. And I came back here at the end of 1953, between the end of '53 and the beginning of 1954. We left here in 1948,

in the month of November, the 15th of November. That's when they kicked us out, on November 15, 1948. We were in Rmeish, and under us was Ibil which faces Kfar Bi'rim. And here among the Army our families and our children were staying. The village is right here in front of us. When the airplanes bombed it, and around it, it was a day of wailing. All those people started shouting and crying, 'This person's home is destroyed, that person's home is destroyed'"

Later we eat tabbouli and fish from Lake Tiberias. Visitors come by and sit in the tree-shaded garden. There occurs one of those chance meetings that are such a delightful part of traveling. An afternoon visitor turns out to be Mustafa Abbousi. During 1948 there was a battle here, many Palestinians died, and most Jish people fled. Mustafa's was one of the few Sunni Muslim families that remained. He is related to Zeyd Wehbeh, someone I recorded with in Lebanon in 1977, when I was researching for my first book. Mustafa is an historian and author of studies of Safed and its villages. He knows my work and is interested in oral history.

The Yacoubs have decided to stay overnight in Jish because tomorrow is A'eed al-Shahneeni (Palm Sunday). But Kamel kindly drives me back to Nasra - there aren't any buses today (the Sabbath).